The market for services is global, and many of us are used to having our issues fielded by someone in India. For decades, big companies in the US and Europe have set up global capability centers in India to handle back-office operations. In this episode, we hear from Chicago Booth’s Raghuram Rajan, who sees the future of India’s economy as moving from the back office to the front-of-house. This is the second of our two conversations with Rajan about his new book, Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity.

New York Times columnist David Brooks’ latest book, How to Know a Person is about our ability to know others, and to make them feel valued and understood. In this episode, Brooks talks to Chicago Booth’s Nick Epley about how seemingly small, everyday interactions can significantly shape our lives. Their conversation was part of the Think Better series, organized by Chicago Booth’s Roman Family Center for Decision Research.

Most US companies have a toxic culture, according to Lucia Annunzio, Adjunct Associate Professor of Executive Education at Chicago Booth. The hallmarks are a lack of transparency, short-termism, and top-down leadership. As a result, employees feel micromanaged, stressed, and disengaged. So what can managers do to stop the toxicity and create a healthy work culture?

With a population of 1.4 billion, India is the world’s biggest democracy and already one of the world’s leading economies, but it still has huge potential to grow its economy. So how should India grow? And what does the country need to realize the potential of its human capital? In this episode, we speak to Chicago Booth’s Raghuram Rajan, who served as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 2013 to 2016, about his new book, Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity. This is the first of two podcasts with Rajan about the book. 

Political folk wisdom tells us that people become more conservative as they get older. But does the evidence back that up? And is the political divide between older and younger voters getting bigger? In this episode, we speak with Chicago Booth’s Sam Peltzman about his research on political ideology.

For the past 20 years, the growth in US productivity has been sluggish at about 1.2%, compared to the 3% pace at which it grew from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Chicago Booth’s Chad Syverson says that if US productivity hadn’t slowed, the US economy would be bigger to the tune of $25,000 per person. So what’s happening to productivity, and is it finally about to turn the corner?

Climate change is a global problem, so it can’t be solved by a limited number of countries acting alone. But can we develop and enforce global rules? In this episode, we hear from Chicago Booth’s Christian Leuz, an accounting professor who advocates for companies to report their carbon emissions. This is our second podcast with Leuz about emissions reporting and climate change. We released the first in March under the title, “Could reporting carbon emissions help cut them?”

The ancient Greeks thought a lot about strategy, which is why strategists in business, politics, and the military still draw on their wisdom today. So what business lessons can we learn from the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey? In this episode, we hear from Chicago Booth’s Greg Bunch, who teaches new venture strategy to MBA students and executives. When he’s advising entrepreneurs, when does he urge them to be more like Agamemnon, who was able to bring people together for a common cause, or Odysseus, known for his strategic mind and his ability to outwit opponents, or Achilles, the most skilled of all warriors? And what characteristics do today’s business leaders share with the legendary leaders of ancient Greece?

If you want to lose weight, you first need to know how much you weigh, how many calories you’re eating a day, and how many minutes of exercise you’re getting. Now imagine you post all that information on your social media page and ask your contacts to hold you accountable. Could that same idea help us tackle global warming? In this episode, Chicago Booth’s Christian Leuz says the same transparency that helps regulators and investors understand what businesses are doing financially could help combat the damage they do to the environment.

Most workers in the US say they are feeling angry, anxious, and disengaged from their jobs. Why is that, and what can be done? In this episode, we hear from one of the world’s leading researchers on motivation, Chicago Booth’s Ayelet Fishbach, who calls this “a crisis of motivation” whose roots lie in how we work, and how we think about work. The motivation crisis has consequences for both employees and employers. So how can we get ourselves and our teams excited about work again?